Mina Amiri Kalvøy ☄︎

The Waiting Room is an interactive fiction series hosted online. The series takes inspiration from reality shifting, a phenomenon described as “transcending” or “shifting” one’s consciousness to a different, desired reality. While the desired realities within the shifting community typically centres around destinations borrowed from popular culture (Hogwarts being one of the most visited realities), The Waiting Room focuses on the spaces that exist within digital and physical realms.

Across two chapters, The Waiting Room and Quest for the Self, readers take control of a protagonist who, while exploring various methods of self-soothing both on- and offline, finds themselves speaking to grumpy receptionists, jumping off buildings, answering existential questions, and being introduced to a potential clone. Experienced like a transcendent dream, the series creates tension through colour, images, sound and an ambiguous atmosphere. Both chapters have elements of text being randomly generated, ensuring unique play-throughs. When exhibited, readers can bring home a version of their journey through the first chapter, printed on a thermal printer.

Quest for the Self was published as part of the 12th edition of the online magazine ORAL.pub in winter 2024.

Web development by David Barriga Ruano, technical support by Nikola Marić and Julian Netzer.

⌻ Link to read The Waiting Room – desktop only

☍ Link to read Quest for the Self – desktop only